Meanings
plural phono-semantic compounds
- A Chinese character (CJKV character) composed of a component which is related to the meaning the character and another component which is related to the sound of the character.
'Jeon' is a phono-semantic compound which is formed from two elements of different words in two parts.
2015, Denise Doyle, New Opportunities for Artistic Practice in Virtual Worlds, →ISBN, page 573 more examples
Only an opaque and weak orthography-to-phonology analogy rule can be found with the phono-semantic compound type of characters (i.e., the xingshēng zi), which covers 80% of modern daily-use characters.
2006, Language and linguistics - Volume 7, Issue 3, page 579The Chinese character 城 is a phono-semantic compound of the "place" or "earth" radical 土 and 成, whose Old Chinese pronunciation has been reconstructed as *deŋ.
2016 July 31, Sigurdr Volsung, “US elections - I do remember such unpopular cadidates”, in soc.history.medieval (Usenet)Phono-semantic compound characters, or the combination of elements that provide meaning and sound: the rebus 干 (gan) provides the phonetic basis for combinations with determinative characters such as 木 (mu, tree),日 (ri, sun), and 月 (rou, meat), to create the characters ...
2017, Thomas O. Höllmann, Chinese Script: History, Characters, Calligraphy, →ISBNSynonyms: determination-phonetic character, semaphore-phonetic character
Synonyms & antonyms
nounA Chinese character (CJKV character) composed of a component which is related to the meaning the character and another component which is related to the sound of the character.
Origin
Calque from Chinese 形聲字/形声字 (xíngshēngzì).
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Chinese Mandarin 形聲字 /形声字
- 形聲字 /形声字 (xíngshēngzì)a type of Chinese character
Finnish kuvafoneettinen merkki
- kuvafoneettinen merkkia type of Chinese character
French idéo-phonogramme
- idéo-phonogrammea type of Chinese character
Japanese 形声文字
- 形声文字 (keiseimoji)a type of Chinese character
Polish znak fonosemantyczny
- znak fonosemantycznya type of Chinese character
Spanish carácter radical-fonético
- carácter radical-fonéticoa type of Chinese character
Cite this entry
phono-semantic compound. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/phono-semantic%20compound
“phono-semantic compound.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/phono-semantic%20compound. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “phono-semantic compound,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/phono-semantic%20compound.
Source: phono-semantic compound on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.